Good. The downsides of the (asshole) posters of GoT split into chunks with the full knowledge that it's nothing more than piracy is more than offset by the real creative works which would be (and, as Ars reports, are) badly chilled even despite Safe Harbor and Fair Use.

These asshats want carte blanche to kill off anything they want, good on Youtube for telling them to take a hike.

Youtube is the least of the EPLs worries as far as unlicensed broadcasts of their matches go.

True, but I'll be happy for them to try and fight google fruitlessly over it in court for a while. Not all of us want to have to get a phone line installed solely for the use of a SKY box just to watch football, and I don't want to pay an over-inflated cost to get a Virgin box installed for the same purpose and have 200 odd channels of crap that will never be watched. The only thing I want to watch live on TV is football (and maybe a bit of formula 1).

Quite why I can't pay a small subscription and watch them online I will never fathom.

Youtube is the least of the EPLs worries as far as unlicensed broadcasts of their matches go.

True, but I'll be happy for them to try and fight google fruitlessly over it in court for a while. Not all of us want to have to get a phone line installed solely for the use of a SKY box just to watch football, and I don't want to pay an over-inflated cost to get a Virgin box installed for the same purpose and have 200 odd channels of crap that will never be watched. The only thing I want to watch live on TV is football (and maybe a bit of formula 1).

Quite why I can't pay a small subscription and watch them online I will never fathom.

You can't because if they sell you 200 channels they can milk you for more money. Since they have a monopoly they can get most people to pay.

Youtube is the least of the EPLs worries as far as unlicensed broadcasts of their matches go.

Today, sure. Way back then, not so much. They want damages for all the piracy they believe they saw yonks ago. These days they need to be trying to chase down the gazillions of flash-based sites using cheap CDNs to dish out ad-laden streams and not coming live until five minutes before the match starts. It's a bugger of a problem and if they weren't so damn rich from their tv rights negotiations, I might feel bad for them.

I was assuming it was more the clips of the best plays that they were mad about. After all why buy the greatest moments DVD or tune into the local sports channel highlight real when you can just watch the best moments of the game on youTube.

Of all the sites out there, you would think that YouTube would be the least of their worries. But the copyright infringement claim is not their primary motivation. What they really want is for it to be impossible for regular users to have a place to post their own videos due any associated liability costs that could be associated with hosting a user content generated site. THIS is really the precedence they are pushing for here. They want a large fine, one in which other companies (especially startup companies, the ones building new things and coming up with new models) will find it too costly to consider. They want to be back in control deciding who is watching what and when, and they want it to be their content, and only their content, that people are consuming.

I hate all of them. I stopped watching "commercially" produced movies over 5 years ago in any format, free or otherwise. You couldn't pay me to watch their crap now. If you want these lobby groups and greedy industries to go away and not have funds to continue holding back progress, stop consuming their content in any form and at any cost.

Of all the sites out there, you would think that YouTube would be the least of their worries. But the copyright infringement claim is not their primary motivation. What they really want is for it to be impossible for regular users have a place to post their own videos due any associated liability costs that could be associated with hosting a user content generated site. THIS is really the precedence they are pushing for here. They want a large fine, one in which other companies (especially startup companies, the ones building new things and coming up with new models) find it too costly to consider. They want to be back in control deciding who is watching what and when, and they want it to be their content, and only their content, that people are consuming.

I hate all of them. I stopped watching "commercially" produced movies over 5 years ago in any format, free or otherwise. You couldn't pay me to watch their crap now. If you want these lobby groups and greedy industries to go away and not have funds to continue holding back progress, stop consuming their content in any form and at any cost.

TL;DR: Basically they want to outlaw fair use. i rather doubt the news stations pay any sports group for the clips they use in their highlight reels.

Of all the sites out there, you would think that YouTube would be the least of their worries. But the copyright infringement claim is not their primary motivation. What they really want is for it to be impossible for regular users have a place to post their own videos due any associated liability costs that could be associated with hosting a user content generated site. THIS is really the precedence they are pushing for here. They want a large fine, one in which other companies (especially startup companies, the ones building new things and coming up with new models) find it too costly to consider. They want to be back in control deciding who is watching what and when, and they want it to be their content, and only their content, that people are consuming.

I hate all of them. I stopped watching "commercially" produced movies over 5 years ago in any format, free or otherwise. You couldn't pay me to watch their crap now. If you want these lobby groups and greedy industries to go away and not have funds to continue holding back progress, stop consuming their content in any form and at any cost.

TL;DR: Basically they want to outlaw fair use. i rather doubt the news stations pay any sports group for the clips they use in their highlight reels.

The German news program "Tagesschau" is streamed live on the internet, but they black out the sports news for licensing reasons. It is idiotic.

Not all of us want to have to get a phone line installed solely for the use of a SKY box just to watch football,

OK, then don't.

Quote:

and I don't want to pay an over-inflated cost to get a Virgin box installed for the same purpose and have 200 odd channels of crap that will never be watched.

And don't do that either. Problem solved.

Quote:

Quite why I can't pay a small subscription and watch them online I will never fathom.

Because nobody wants to sell it to you that way.

OK, so let's say Reno79, me and everyone who thinks like us decide not to pay for football and not to pirate football. Now who's got the bigger problem? Reno79 who can't watch the football anymore, or the EPL who wipe out a huge chunk of their market?

Youtube is the least of the EPLs worries as far as unlicensed broadcasts of their matches go.

True, but I'll be happy for them to try and fight google fruitlessly over it in court for a while. Not all of us want to have to get a phone line installed solely for the use of a SKY box just to watch football, and I don't want to pay an over-inflated cost to get a Virgin box installed for the same purpose and have 200 odd channels of crap that will never be watched. The only thing I want to watch live on TV is football (and maybe a bit of formula 1).

Quite why I can't pay a small subscription and watch them online I will never fathom.

Rightsholders have never been able to grasp the huge profit implications of new technology, they can only see the threat posed to their existing business model.

Look at the music business, which fought on-line for years thinking that selling physical CDs for $15 was the only way to make money. Now they're making ever more money selling music for $0.99/song with zero distribution costs and everyone wonders what the fuss was all about.

<rant>Meanwhile Hollywood looks at the music industry as a _failure_ because we pay for the song once and can play it as often as we like, while Disney and the rest would rather we pay each time we view their movies/TV episodes. And if they ever get that, they'll cry about how we thieves can cluster our entire family around the TV and watch a movie for $5, rather than paying $5/person like at the theater. And they wonder why the Pirate Bay thrives.</rant>

Of all the sites out there, you would think that YouTube would be the least of their worries. But the copyright infringement claim is not their primary motivation. What they really want is for it to be impossible for regular users have a place to post their own videos due any associated liability costs that could be associated with hosting a user content generated site. THIS is really the precedence they are pushing for here. They want a large fine, one in which other companies (especially startup companies, the ones building new things and coming up with new models) find it too costly to consider. They want to be back in control deciding who is watching what and when, and they want it to be their content, and only their content, that people are consuming.

I hate all of them. I stopped watching "commercially" produced movies over 5 years ago in any format, free or otherwise. You couldn't pay me to watch their crap now. If you want these lobby groups and greedy industries to go away and not have funds to continue holding back progress, stop consuming their content in any form and at any cost.

TL;DR: Basically they want to outlaw fair use. i rather doubt the news stations pay any sports group for the clips they use in their highlight reels.

The German news program "Tagesschau" is streamed live on the internet, but they black out the sports news for licensing reasons. It is idiotic.

German copyright laws are idiotic. As I understand it, they have no definition of "fair use", and thus YouTube is unavailable in Germany.

So I suppose that if I were trying to be fair about the law here, I'd draw a distinction between user-posted content that Google hosted out of the good of its heart, and content where Google and the uploader intentionally profit by showing ads.

In the former case, it's hard to find Google being abusive, because they have no obvious interest in stepping on rights.

In the latter case, you'd think that Google could easily enough require a direct, binding claim from a real person, where the uploader specifically claims he owns copyright to the work. In that case, Google would have done some minimal due diligence consistent with the nice increment to its revenue/profits; any rights-holders could go after the real perp, and settlements could conceivably include a three-year ban from repeat infringements, or maybe even ANY Google uploads.

This distinction would make it very difficult for anti-Google forces to put legit and/or fair use uploads out of business, and would make class actions irrelevant. Meanwhile, it'd distance Google from any sense that they are actively encouraging unfair use. Why wouldn't Google undertake this?

Copyright owners doesn't think about how they can make money by selling/using their copyrighted work but instead think all day about how they can hit a jackpot by suing everyone and everything they can find.

Just like I felt the stock market is twisted in which people are not buying stock because the company has valuable product and they want to profit share but instead trying to make money off the "buy low sell high" value.

What the hell is wrong with the world that they are not trying to create value out of something tangible, but trying to chase values that are either imaginary or based on nothing (copyright/intellectual property right/stock price). It's like pulling money out of thin air...

I hate all of them. I stopped watching "commercially" produced movies over 5 years ago in any format, free or otherwise. You couldn't pay me to watch their crap now.

Out of curiosity: What are you watching instead=

Quote:

If you want these lobby groups and greedy industries to go away and not have funds to continue holding back progress, stop consuming their content in any form and at any cost.

Now, considering how many people still *are* watching that content – albeit often pirated – I assume a lot of people may dislike the business model but like the films and shows (otherwise, why would they even bother pirating it?). So, for those people, there might be a better strategy: Pay for the content when the price is right. That'll teach 'em – the right price points, that is.

Personally: Netflix Streaming and Spotify make me feel like I'm getting good value for my money. Steam sales offer good value, in spite of the non-intrusive DRM. My grandfathered Audible and eMusic pricing plans offer extremely good value. DRM-laden iTunes TV show downloads that cost three times as much as the equivalent BluRay box set? Not so much.

So, I'm voting with my wallet: For certain business models and against others.

So I suppose that if I were trying to be fair about the law here, I'd draw a distinction between user-posted content that Google hosted out of the good of its heart, and content where Google and the uploader intentionally profit by showing ads.

In the former case, it's hard to find Google being abusive, because they have no obvious interest in stepping on rights.

In the latter case, you'd think that Google could easily enough require a direct, binding claim from a real person, where the uploader specifically claims he owns copyright to the work. In that case, Google would have done some minimal due diligence consistent with the nice increment to its revenue/profits; any rights-holders could go after the real perp, and settlements could conceivably include a three-year ban from repeat infringements, or maybe even ANY Google uploads.

This distinction would make it very difficult for anti-Google forces to put legit and/or fair use uploads out of business, and would make class actions irrelevant. Meanwhile, it'd distance Google from any sense that they are actively encouraging unfair use. Why wouldn't Google undertake this?

I'm pretty sure you've always had to assert that you are not breaching copyright law when you upload the video. The copyright holders don't care, and Google are reluctant to release the details of their users to copyright holders.

Copyright owners doesn't think about how they can make money by selling/using their copyrighted work but instead think all day about how they can hit a jackpot by suing everyone and everything they can find.

Just like I felt the stock market is twisted in which people are not buying stock because the company has valuable product and they want to profit share but instead trying to make money off the "buy low sell high" value.

What the hell is wrong with the world that they are not trying to create value out of something tangible, but trying to chase values that are either imaginary or based on nothing (copyright/intellectual property right/stock price). It's like pulling money out of thin air...

I completely agree with you. If I bring something like this up to almost anyone else they look at me like I am crazy. The stock market is nothing more than legalized gambling, and the greedy masses trying to get rich off of other peoples work. I have an idea. How about your earnings reflect what you worked for? No "free" money by gambling away what others have done. It all comes done to one thing: greed and the never ending pursuit of the almighty dollar. And this has nothing to do with me being bitter. I make a good living, I would probably fall in the "upper-middle class" (if you believe in this sort of thing), but I work hard for it and I don't expect anything for free. I'm also at the point where I don't care to make any more money, I'm making enough so that me and my family are healthy and happy. I think too many people in America have lost there way, and we are all going to end up paying for it.

Funny how these corporate executives, lobbyists, and the bought and paid for U.S. government are, in a way, of the belief that they have a right to all this money that honestly they haven't earned, or worked for, yet they come screaming at everyone else who may have watched a movie or listened to a song but might not have paid for it themselves. Through various ways, not just online downloading. This just happens to be the only method they can really monitor in some way.

The German news program "Tagesschau" is streamed live on the internet, but they black out the sports news for licensing reasons. It is idiotic.

German copyright laws are idiotic. As I understand it, they have no definition of "fair use", and thus YouTube is unavailable in Germany.

That's quite an exaggeration – YouTube is doing quite well over here. They are quite transparent about when they're blocking a video, and while it is annoying (cause I have to switch to the proxy or go to another site to watch it ;-) ) it doesn't happen often enough to make YouTube unusable by a long shot.

As for the sports news: I'm not sure if a professional broadcasting entity could claim fair use in the US, could they? Besides: It's not all sports news, "only" the football clips that are blacked out due to licensing reasons – internet broadcast rights are sold separately by the football league. That may be stupid and old-fashioned thinking, but it's not limited to Germany. AFAIK, MLB acts in a similar way in the US, blacking out internet streaming of games for markets where they have a TV deal for that specific game.

Not all of us want to have to get a phone line installed solely for the use of a SKY box just to watch football,

OK, then don't.

Quote:

and I don't want to pay an over-inflated cost to get a Virgin box installed for the same purpose and have 200 odd channels of crap that will never be watched.

And don't do that either. Problem solved.

Quote:

Quite why I can't pay a small subscription and watch them online I will never fathom.

Because nobody wants to sell it to you that way.

OK, so let's say Reno79, me and everyone who thinks like us decide not to pay for football and not to pirate football. Now who's got the bigger problem? Reno79 who can't watch the football anymore, or the EPL who wipe out a huge chunk of their market?

Quite why I can't pay a small subscription and watch them online I will never fathom.

Because nobody wants to sell it to you that way.

So you recognize the problem with monopoly then? There is a product or service that does actually experience a fair amount of demand (I have seen and heard quite a lot of people express interest in this very thing), but none of the existing providers want to take the risk of trying to provide it, and they have things so well locked down that nobody else who is willing to risk it is allowed to (or can afford the start-up costs of doing it). So the supply-demand system breaks down because the suppliers are in a position where they don't really have to provide what customers demand and can try to bully their way into controlling the market and customers are forced to either play ball or become outlaws.

I'm not saying piracy is in any way justified, but the corporations are in no way victims. The only people who are really losing out are the content creators.

The German news program "Tagesschau" is streamed live on the internet, but they black out the sports news for licensing reasons. It is idiotic.

German copyright laws are idiotic. As I understand it, they have no definition of "fair use", and thus YouTube is unavailable in Germany.

That's quite an exaggeration – YouTube is doing quite well over here. They are quite transparent about when they're blocking a video, and while it is annoying (cause I have to switch to the proxy or go to another site to watch it ;-) ) it doesn't happen often enough to make YouTube unusable by a long shot.

As for the sports news: I'm not sure if a professional broadcasting entity could claim fair use in the US, could they? Besides: It's not all sports news, "only" the football clips that are blacked out due to licensing reasons – internet broadcast rights are sold separately by the football league. That may be stupid and old-fashioned thinking, but it's not limited to Germany. AFAIK, MLB acts in a similar way in the US, blacking out internet streaming of games for markets where they have a TV deal for that specific game.

Blacking out games is not the same as blacking out 5 minutes of highlights on a news broadcast.

And also, usually when I stream Tagesschau here in the USA, the entire sports segment is blacked out. Sometimes they leave in non-soccer material, and sometimes they seem to forget and I see half the sports segment before it suddenly turns into a blank screen, but those are rare exceptions to the general rule of just blacking out the whole sports segment.

The German news program "Tagesschau" is streamed live on the internet, but they black out the sports news for licensing reasons. It is idiotic.

German copyright laws are idiotic. As I understand it, they have no definition of "fair use", and thus YouTube is unavailable in Germany.

[great big snip]

[I hope I got the attribution right]"Fair use" is extremely limited in this regard, and it is even possible that it wouldn't cover sports highlights if not for tradition. While at least one grandstanding lawyer (Charlie Nesson) working for a [sucker] martyr may have claimed that any violation of copyright is covered by fair use, the actual use is limited*. The DMCA "safe harbor" (big business exception) is the law that keeps u-tube in business

If watching the highlights of the game could significantly reduce the value of the replay (while baseball may have defended their stats, I'm pretty sure nobody has claimed ownership of the final score). Should a raceing series be willing to make (and convince the judge) the claim that racing watchers "only watch for the crashes", then showing the crashes would not be allowed under fair use. Conversely if the goals in a soccer (football) match are that significantly more important than the rest of the game, then showing the goals may well not be covered under fair use.

Now, considering how many people still *are* watching that content – albeit often pirated – I assume a lot of people may dislike the business model but like the films and shows (otherwise, why would they even bother pirating it?). So, for those people, there might be a better strategy: Pay for the content when the price is right. That'll teach 'em – the right price points, that is.

I have to agree with this.

Case in point, the latest TV show I've become interested in the CW's Arrow. However, due to the fact that I share my living space with other people, I'm never able to catch the show when it airs on TV. So instead of waiting for re-runs or going to one of the many streaming sites linking to pirated content from websites W, X, Y, and Z, I just go to the CW website and watch the latest episode there.

Sure, I do have to sit through commercials, but the commercials are set at the same intervals as they are on the tube, not this "every five minutes" junk that has a tendency to pop in right when something extremely critical to the plot is happening. And frankly, I'm fine with that. My only quibble is that they only have the last 5 episodes available to stream on their website, meaning that if I want to go back and watch the pilot episode, I have to either wait for re-runs or don the ol' pirate hat to go stream the show online from another website.

I get the idea behind the whole "only 5 episodes online at a time" strategy for shows that are currently airing (as in they're still making more episodes). It's (usually) the same thing they do for shows when you want to watch them on demand via cable. It makes sense.

However, for shows that are no longer airing on any channels, the idea of limiting you to five episodes plus the 2-4 ads every 5 minutes and pulling "To view the full episode, subscribe and upgrade our 'plus' membership now!" bs on top of that is not only infuriating and counterproductive to the viewer, it can also drive people toward the pirate sites that you hate so much [I'm looking at you Hulu].

Whether Hollywood realizes/admits/likes it or not, the Internet is a 'consumer marketplace', and their competition are the pirates and the streaming sites and are offering the same product as Hollywood's "legal websites", only the pirates offer it for free (most of the time). If Hollywood wants to be able to compete with free [this is possible] they have to offer legal alternatives at reasonable prices and provide incentives for consumers to go to the legal sites instead of the pirates. The first suggestion that comes to mind is making all episodes of the off-the-air shows available for subscribers, who pay an acceptably low fee and have to sit through a few commercials when watching, except have them occurring when the show cut to commercial on TV instead of after an arbitrary amount of time passes.

They won't get everyone to stop going to the pirate sites, but there are a chunk of netizens who will always choose the free, easy alternative no matter what the studios do. [/tangent]

As for the article, I remember back in the day when I could find the first Mortal Kombat movie and all 3 Robocop films on Youtube (granted, they were all broken into 7-8 parts, but I was just happy to be able to find them online [I was a naive netizen who didn't know about the wonders of torrents back then, so cut me a little slack.]). What I find depressing that companies such as Crackle exist on Youtube today, providing what is essentially Hulu-Lite, and companies are still going after Youtube *cough*Viacom*cough* for turning a blind eye to infringers, when Youtube has probably the most corporation-favoring, lopsided takedown system this side of the interweb!

Props to Judge Stanton for not allowing all these copyright holders form a class action lawsuit. As stated in the article, every case is unique, and as was the case with MegaUpload (excluding the 37 files that may or may not have been used to entrap the company by the DOJ), Youtube doesn't create its own infringing material, it's merely a forum* for people to post videos, some of which could have infringing content (and even then, the content may be safe under fair use).

*meaning an public place for open discussion, not an Internet message board.

Now, considering how many people still *are* watching that content – albeit often pirated – I assume a lot of people may dislike the business model but like the films and shows (otherwise, why would they even bother pirating it?). So, for those people, there might be a better strategy: Pay for the content when the price is right. That'll teach 'em – the right price points, that is.

I have to agree with this.

Case in point, the latest TV show I've become interested in the CW's Arrow. However, due to the fact that I share my living space with other people, I'm never able to catch the show when it airs on TV. So instead of waiting for re-runs or going to one of the many streaming sites linking to pirated content from websites W, X, Y, and Z, I just go to the CW website and watch the latest episode there.

Sure, I do have to sit through commercials, but the commercials are set at the same intervals as they are on the tube, not this "every five minutes" junk that has a tendency to pop in right when something extremely critical to the plot is happening. And frankly, I'm fine with that. My only quibble is that they only have the last 5 episodes available to stream on their website, meaning that if I want to go back and watch the pilot episode, I have to either wait for re-runs or don the ol' pirate hat to go stream the show online from another website.

I get the idea behind the whole "only 5 episodes online at a time" strategy for shows that are currently airing (as in they're still making more episodes). It's (usually) the same thing they do for shows when you want to watch them on demand via cable. It makes sense.

However, for shows that are no longer airing on any channels, the idea of limiting you to five episodes plus the 2-4 ads every 5 minutes and pulling "To view the full episode, subscribe and upgrade our 'plus' membership now!" bs on top of that is not only infuriating and counterproductive to the viewer, it can also drive people toward the pirate sites that you hate so much [I'm looking at you Hulu].

Whether Hollywood realizes/admits/likes it or not, the Internet is a 'consumer marketplace', and their competition are the pirates and the streaming sites and are offering the same product as Hollywood's "legal websites", only the pirates offer it for free (most of the time). If Hollywood wants to be able to compete with free [this is possible] they have to offer legal alternatives at reasonable prices and provide incentives for consumers to go to the legal sites instead of the pirates. The first suggestion that comes to mind is making all episodes of the off-the-air shows available for subscribers, who pay an acceptably low fee and have to sit through a few commercials when watching, except have them occurring when the show cut to commercial on TV instead of after an arbitrary amount of time passes.

They won't get everyone to stop going to the pirate sites, but there are a chunk of netizens who will always choose the free, easy alternative no matter what the studios do. [/tangent]

As for the article, I remember back in the day when I could find the first Mortal Kombat movie and all 3 Robocop films on Youtube (granted, they were all broken into 7-8 parts, but I was just happy to be able to find them online [I was a naive netizen who didn't know about the wonders of torrents back then, so cut me a little slack.]). What I find depressing that companies such as Crackle exist on Youtube today, providing what is essentially Hulu-Lite, and companies are still going after Youtube *cough*Viacom*cough* for turning a blind eye to infringers, when Youtube has probably the most corporation-favoring, lopsided takedown system this side of the interweb!

Props to Judge Stanton for not allowing all these copyright holders form a class action lawsuit. As stated in the article, every case is unique, and as was the case with MegaUpload (excluding the 37 files that may or may not have been used to entrap the company by the DOJ), Youtube doesn't create its own infringing material, it's merely a forum* for people to post videos, some of which could have infringing content (and even then, the content may be safe under fair use).

*meaning an public place for open discussion, not an Internet message board.

Agreed. And it's not Google's/YouTube's job to decide what is or is not infringing. That's what DMCA takedown notices are for.

It's lovely to see US judges protecting the powerful from the weak like this. Because that's what law's all about, right?

Aren't those the same criteria that get the ~class-action~ spam suits against multiple defendants thrown out? Or should the powerful _not_ be protected against blatant barratry like this? Because that's what this is, the only reason that's not obvious is because it's also judge-shopping for ignorant judges, and there was some fear they might find one.